Abstract

Today, with around 250 million children living in situations of armed conflict, protecting children in conflicts is a major challenge for international children’s law and its implementation. This chapter examines the international legal provisions that protect children during armed conflict found in two separate but complementary legal regimes: international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

It reviews the general legal protections given to children during conflict, notably their access to supplies vital for their physical and mental well-being (such as medical care, food, and clothing) and their access to activities essential for their development, particularly education.

It also examines how international law protects children from participating in armed conflicts: it analyzes the prohibition of their recruitment and use in hostilities and also reviews how children arrested or detained must be treated. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of how the protection of children in armed conflict has become a major international and national issue over the last decades.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background To The Study

Following the First World War, the British Save the Children and its Swedish counterpart, Radda Barnen, drafted a Declaration on the Rights of the Child which was adopted by the League of Nations in 1924. This Geneva Declaration, as it was called, offered 136 special care and protection for children regardless of race and nationality.

After the Second World War this declaration was revised and in 1959 the United Nations adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child which expanded the previous declaration and dealt with welfare and education and the right to an upbringing in a spirit of universal brotherhood.

In 1974 the UN General Assembly adopted a Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergencies and Armed Conflict. This declaration condemns attacks and bombing on ci- vilian populations and prohibits persecution, imprisonment, torture and all forms of degrading violence against women and children.

The need for particular care to the child is also recognized by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (art. 23 and 24) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (art. 10).

The view has been put forward by many, however, that the existing Declarations are of little use as they have no teeth and that what is needed is a Convention. At a NGO Forum organized in Rome by the United Nations Children’s Fund in 1984, Mr. Nils Thedin, President of their Swedish Committee, stated the view that the Declarations in existence are either forgotten or neglected and that an International Convention on the Rights of the Child including protection in external and internal armed conflicts—is of supreme importance and that NGOs must influence public opinion and bring pressure to bear on governments and international bodies for this. He stated: “In the present situation with the threat in every armed conflict of indiscriminate destruction… it is imperative to strengthen the UN and the instruments of international law.”

Mr. Thedin, in speaking of an international convention on the rights of the child, was supporting a proposal originally put forward by Poland to the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1978 in the hope that it would be adopted by the General Assembly during the Year of the Child. It was felt, however, that the terminology was not suited to a contractual instrument and that certain Points needed to be more adequately covered and the Commission on Human Rights opted to set up a working group.

The first meeting was held Work is also presently under way for a European Convention on the Rights of the Child. The idea of a Convention for the protection of the child is not a new one. In fact, in 1939 the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Union for Child Welfare had drafted a Convention for the Protection of Children in Armed Conflict but work could not be continued due to the outbreak of war.

In Mr. Thedin’s statement, specific attention is given to the protection of the child in external and internal armed conflicts and it is important to be aware that there already exist legal instruments in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the two Additional Protocols of 1977 that offer precisely that. Perhaps before we examine the present legal provisions in inter-national humanitarian law which provide protection for children in particular, we should turn our attention for a moment to the beginnings of international humanitarian law and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).n 1979.

1.2 Statement Of Problem

There have been laws regulating the protection of minors during armed conflict, international organizations has also put in place institutions to make sure that minors are protected during armed conflicts. This include, the international reviews of the red cross May- June 1984 which is entitled “the protection of children in international humanitarian law”, the Geneva conventions of 1949 and their additional protocols of 1977 so as to make sure that minors are protected during armed conflicts. But this framework was seen as plaque as minors still experience inadequate protection during armed conflicts. This is glaring as seen in the case of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia 2022 which the children’s hospital was set ablaze killing minors and others went wounded.

Another problem is the ineffectiveness of the laws put in place for the protection of minions during armed conflicts and no deterrence sanctions given to perpetrators of such violations. The international institutions protecting minors during armed conflicts have been termed a bulldog that back but cannot bite. This problem necessitated the study.

1.3 Research Questions

1.3.1 Main Research Question

Protection of minors during armed conflicts

1.3.2 Specific Research Questions

1. Who is a minor and what can be termed as armed conflicts?
2. What is the various mechanism for protecting minors during armed conflicts?
3. What are the challenges faced in protecting minors during armed conflicts?
4. Are there policy recommendations that can be made which can better help protect minors during armed conflicts?

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